The Shelter Cycle (9 page)

“You missed me.”

“It's having the baby, I think, that makes me wonder. That's the thing.”

“What's the thing?”

“You know. All about Mom and Dad, I guess. Just being a parent.”

Maya set the plate in front of her. Francine took a bite of the pizza, burned her tongue, put it down again.

“So you could have the baby anytime?”

“Not really. I mean, I could and I guess it would be all right, it could breathe air and everything. It wouldn't be the best.”

“How does it feel?”

“Weird.”

“That's all?”

“It's hard to describe. A little scary.”

The lights hummed above. The windows reflected black. The clock on the stove said 10:15. It felt much later.

“I was thinking,” Francine said. “I was thinking it might help me to go back to Glastonbury, to the shelter.”

“The shelter?” Maya said. “It's such a mess, just mold and spiders.”

“Do you still have the keys?”

“You should be taking it easy, Francine.”

“So help me. Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow's a workday. We're way behind schedule.”

“I'll go alone, then.”

Francine looked at the crust in her hand, the slice of pizza already gone, then back across the table. There was a new crease in Maya's forehead, between her eyes, and new wrinkles around her mouth. She had had a few gray hairs before; now they had gathered in this swath of her bangs. Or perhaps all of her hair was gray and she'd dyed the rest. No, that wasn't like her.

“You should call Wells. Tell him you made it.”

“I'll call him, a little later. I'm just so tired. You think I could take a shower?”

“Towels are in the closet. You know where.”

Maya reached out, touching her shoulder as Francine kept walking without slowing, down the hallway. It still felt strange to be on her feet, not driving, not to have the windshield framing her view. Kicking off her clogs, she turned on the fan in the bathroom, set a towel on the back of the toilet where she'd be able to reach it. She was standing there, half undressed, when Maya knocked on the door.

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah.” She wrapped the towel around herself as the door swung open.

Maya had taken off her boots and now wore sheepskin slippers. “Well,” she said. “There you are.”

“You need something?”

“I just wanted to look at you.”

“What?”

“Your body, I mean. Can I see it?”

“Why?”

“I don't know. I'm curious. Doesn't that make sense? My little sister, all pregnant?”

“No,” Francine said. “I mean, I don't know if it makes sense. Not right now. I'm so tired. It's just weird.”

“I'll set up the bed in the living room, then. I'm going to call it a night.”

“Good night. And thank you.”

The door closed again, and Francine was alone, feeling as if she'd done something wrong, wondering if she should call Maya back or walk naked into the living room. She stayed. She turned on the water in the tub, ran her hand under it. It took a little while to run hot, and then she pulled the lever so the shower sprayed down.

Stepping in, she kicked over Maya's shampoo and conditioner. She picked up the oatmeal soap, sniffed it, then rubbed it across her belly, her skin stretched tight. She closed her eyes, let the hot water beat down on her shoulders. The travel, she felt it in her bones; the yellow lines of the highway still slipped away on the back of her eyelids. She tried to bend down, to wash her feet; she couldn't even see them, couldn't get close. Her body felt like a costume, an attachment. And then the baby moved inside. She felt it first, and then saw the skin ripple, a movement like a hand beneath a sheet.

 

•

 

She lay awake in the silence, the darkness, then hurried back and forth to the bathroom, the air cold against her bare legs until she was back under the warm blankets again. She felt the slats of the frame through the thin futon, smelled ashes in the fireplace. She couldn't sleep, couldn't get comfortable, turning from side to side. The baby wouldn't let her sleep on her stomach; she imagined its body curled up on itself, inside her; she imagined its soul, waiting and watching all this time, from the day she first met Wells, outside the university bookstore in Salt Lake City; it had listened to their conversations, all the great silliness, watched the camping trips and seen them get their marriage license at city hall. It had watched the morning she told Wells of the pregnancy, all the excitement and the worry. The soul watched Wells now, down in Boise, where he was probably asleep, believing she'd be back from work in the morning. To call him might wake him, and it would only let him know that she was not where he thought she was. He'd find that out eventually, and by then she'd be able to explain.

She listened to Maya upstairs, humming to herself as she walked around her bedroom, finally quieting down. The cat's footsteps were lighter, quicker, going up and down the stairs. It crossed the open doorway like a shadow.

The fourth time she got up to pee, she did not return to the futon, the living room. Instead, she quietly climbed the stairs, her hand sliding up the railing, guiding her to the hallway, the bedroom door.

Maya stirred when Francine lifted the comforter and slid in beside her.

“You asleep?”

“Was.”

“Do you mind?”

“No. It's like old times.”

“Yes.” Francine felt herself begin to relax. Her sister smelled faintly of cinnamon, as she always had, the cold soles of her feet reaching back.

“Except for your belly pressing against me,” Maya said. “That's new.”

They both laughed, their sudden voices loud in the dark room. The cat whined, leapt down from the bed.

“What is it you want to talk about?”

“Nothing.” Francine pulled the blanket higher, felt her sister breathing, her spine pressing back, easing away, returning. “It's just that I wanted to come back and see some things, by myself.”

Outside, a car passed. There was the sound of wind, or rain.

“I can do it,” Maya said. “I'll do it.”

“Do what?”

“Go to the shelter tomorrow. In the afternoon? I should work, the morning.”

“I might go earlier,” Francine said. “You could meet me.”

“It'd be easier to drive down together.”

Francine wrapped her arm around her sister. She hugged her tightly, then loosened her hold. They breathed together, in the silence, almost asleep.

“Do you remember,” Francine said, “our calls to Saint Germain, before we fell asleep? So we could visit his retreat while we were dreaming, our bodies in the trailer and our souls slipping off to some higher plane?”

“It was a crystal cave,” Maya said, “in the Tetons.” She giggled, shifted her legs beneath the sheets, her voice a whisper: “Beloved angels of Light, in the name of my own Real Self, I ask that you take me in my soul consciousness to the universities of the Spirit to be tutored. I thank you and accept it done this hour in full power.”

“Tell me something,” Francine said. “Something about Mom and Dad.”

“What about them?”

“Something I don't know.”

“I don't know what you don't know.” Maya turned over to face Francine; it was hard to see her expression. “One thing I remember is how Dad used to rub Mom's feet, at the end of the day. At the dinner table, sometimes. I can remember how that looked, her feet in his big hands, and how he'd make up songs and sing them to her.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Maya said. “I like to think about that sometimes.”

W
HEN FRANCINE AWAKENED
and went downstairs to the kitchen, Maya was already gone. She'd left the key to the shelter on the counter, next to the green telephone, on top of a note:
I'll check in around noon. Hope my little sister slept well.

Francine hadn't slept so soundly in weeks. She opened a cupboard, took out a cup. The telephone book was on the next shelf up, and she pulled it out, set it on the table, opened it as she waited for the teakettle to boil. Steinman, Murray Steinman. There the address was. It didn't seem that it should be so easy.

Half an hour later she was back in her car, driving slowly through the neighborhoods toward the edge of town. Houses spread out; neatly trimmed yards turned to pastures and fields, picket fences became barbed wire. She read the numbers on the mailboxes, counting them down. When she reached the address, she shifted out of gear and kept the motor running.

The house was set back from the road, one story, with two wings that met at a right angle. She didn't want anything in particular, didn't plan to get out of the car or knock on the door. She just wanted to see it, to feel what she felt. To sit here and imagine the Messenger inside, just through the wall, with voices in her head and perhaps gazing out a window or taking a nap or looking through a picture book, photographs. It seemed impossible.

In one corner of the pasture next door, sheep gathered, pressed together for warmth. Two shaggy llamas stood against the fence, closer, steam jerking from their mouths as they chewed their cuds. The sky above hung pale and gray, the sun a paler disk cut into it.

Then the front door of the ranch house opened. A person in a red hat and brown coveralls, zipping up a heavy coat, stepped out and walked around the side of the house. This person turned once, looking back out to the road, toward Francine, and waved.

Opening the car door, she switched off the ignition. She stood up and squinted. The person waved once more, seeming to indicate that Francine should follow, and disappeared around the back of the house.

Francine stumbled. The ground was uneven, mud that had frozen. She still wore her white work clogs; her hands were cold, and she couldn't balance with them in her pockets. As she caught sight, drew closer again, it seemed that the figure ahead was an old man, walking away from her, toward two shaggy horses who lifted their heads and tossed their manes at his approach. Francine kept following, along the outside of the fence, some of the strands of wire taut and new, others rusted and slack.

When she looked up, the man had stopped walking and still looked away, at the horses. They lifted their heavy hooves and lurched along, closer.

“Hello?” Francine said. “Hello?”

The man turned, the red hat almost falling off, held down with one gloved hand. Gray hair stuck down around an expressionless face, gray skin. It was actually a woman, an old woman, now only fifteen feet away. She took a step closer, looking at Francine.

“It's you!” the woman suddenly said. “Oh, yes, it's you. I thought you'd finally come. I remember. I remember. You think I don't remember, but I do remember.”

She did not gesture, her hands at her sides. Her voice was ragged and low, a monotone. Nothing like the Messenger's voice; her eyes were not full of Light; they were unfocused even as she said she remembered.

“It's been a long time,” Francine said.

“You and your sister—I've seen her, she used to come by.”

The horses had reached the Messenger now; their bristly lips nibbled at the shoulders of her coat.

“Ah.” She turned, smiling. “My friends. These are my friends. Here are my friends.” She repeated these sentences, patting the horses' necks, then took an apple from each of her pockets, held them out.

Once the apples were gone, the horses tossed their heads, leaned against each other, waited. The Messenger clapped her gloved hands and they wheeled, clomped across the pasture.

“Mother,” Francine said, the fence still between them.

The Messenger didn't seem to hear. She was singing something to herself, softly, her head nodding a melody as she stomped on gopher holes. She circled slowly around, spiraling closer, farther away.

“I'm going back there today,” Francine said. “I'm going to have my own baby.”

The Messenger stopped circling, stopped singing. She stepped even closer, now only five feet away and looking right through Francine.

“I know that,” she said. “Of course you are. Everyone wants me to name the babies, everyone. All the names of everyone and then where my jewels are, too.”

“No,” Francine said. “That's not what I want.”

“I remember you,” the Messenger said. “You think I don't remember you, but I do remember you.”

“Did my sister really come here?”

“Yes. Many days she comes. And the boy—you and the boy, you used to go everywhere together. I haven't seen him in a long time. No.”

“We spent a lot of time together back then,” Francine said. “I just saw him—”

“Of course you did,” the Messenger said. “He's your brother, after all. You would do that.”

“Mother—”

“The little boy, the little son, of course I see him, every day I see him.”

Just as Francine realized that the Messenger had mistaken her, that the old lady was actually talking about her own sons and daughters—not Maya, or Colville, or Francine, herself—a voice shouted. A man stood at the back of the house, an open door behind him.

“Mother! Come inside now!” He was tall, with a pointed beard and a thick mustache; he wore a kind of bathrobe, blue nylon boots. “Come now, Mother!” he shouted. “Hurry, now.”

The Messenger was already walking toward him, unsteady, her face watching the ground in front of her. She did not look back.

Francine stood where she was as they disappeared into the house. She didn't see any faces in the windows. No one came back outside to ask who she was, to ask her to leave. Shivering, she walked back along the fence line, past the house and across the yard. Her car waited for her out on the street. It was still warm when she climbed inside.

She did not return to Maya's house. Instead, she drove down Main Street, through the old downtown. Past the rearing white horse that spun above the door of the Army Navy Store, past the new art galleries and coffee shops, out onto the interstate.